**I’m in South Africa at the moment and finished smoking a shisha while chatting to my parents about Abu Dhabi. That made me quite nostalgic about the city, so I’ve decide to repost something I wrote about the place when I found out I was leaving, July 2009**

I shall soon leave Abu Dhabi for a new challenge in Libya, however these last 6 months have been awesome. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve sworn in the heat, I’ve sung in the rain, I’ve squinted during sandstorms…

This has been a memorable experience and these are some of the the things I wont forget…

the taxi drivers (some good, some bad);
the belgian woman me and my housemates almost killed in a desert safari;
just smiling and saying nothin while not understanding a single word my Brazilian colleagues were saying in my first couple of weeks here (even though I speak Portuguese as well);
being led down a narrow alley in the gold souk in Dubai by a little Pakistani man and wondering if I’d come out alive; the nice men who gave me back my wallet four months after losing it (including all the money inside);
the friendships made;
the friendships strengthend;
the penthouse;
seeing a little boy screaming and running out of a building onto a busy street as if being chased by death;
going to Dubai with a deathcab and feeling immortal afterwards!;
coming back from Dubai in a bus packed like a sardine can;
shisha, zatar manaeesh and chilling at Layali Zaman;
waiting for taxi’s in 40 degree heat;
laughing at people waiting for taxi’s in 40 degree heat; taxi stops and the absolutely coincidental things that happen there;
driving around for an hour on a Saturday night looking for parking;
walking around the doggiest looking bit of Dubai with Leo while conciously knowing we might not come out alive;
shakespeare in Arabic;
walking past the dinner table seeing my housemate having dinner wearing a white tophat and then asking me ‘whats up?’;
the beautiful words Umer taught me;
getting lost on the way to Bab Al Shams with almost no fuel in the car with Maira and Leo Sleeping thinking everything was fine;
being greeted every morning by my Brazilian housemates with ‘BICHA GORRRDA!!’ (im not translating that!);
singing with Coldplay in the rain;
Maira’s hand gesture for a pineapple;
the ridiculous driving;
crazy Greek woman’s ‘singing’ at Cultural Foundation;
discovering Cajun music;
road trip to Oman with a narcoleptic and scatologist; the Omani taxi driver’s directions to the border post;
Umer being mistaken for Xavi at our football game and kids taking photos with him;
road rage never before experienced;
VIPing at WOMAD Abu Dhabi;
seeing a baby turtle take its first steps;
hearing the Azan;
Bilal, Umer, Amir and Amjad’s faces when I start any of my taxi stories;
Crazy ‘boom boom Afridi’ Pathan at the cricket;
Amjad leaving the above mentioned cricket match, 20 minutes after arriving saying ‘Re this is too stupid and boring!’; meeting a crazy Scot in a kilt in Muscat;
the annoying sounds Farid makes while I’m working;

There’s so much more I can put here but I’ll leave this as it is.

To those who contributed to the awesomeness of my time in Abu Dhabi, I thank you!

Abu Dhabi I bid you farewell and as Fall Out Boy sang horribly… ‘Thanks for the Memories’